1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a blackplane, and more particularly, to a computer backplane disposed with an accelerated graphics port (AGP).
2. Description of the Prior Art
Advancements in information technology have driven the rapid development of the entire computer industry, causing wide usage of personal computers and notebooks in all kinds of the industries. This is especially true in a manufacturing industry, which widely uses industrial computers to produce many different products. In order to increase productivity, improvement of major peripherals applied in industrial computers, such as motherboards, graphics cards, and hard disk drives, is required for high-speed calculation, fast display, and high-volume storage.
Practically speaking, in the fields of industrial computer, a computer server must simultaneously maintain communication with many other computers, or perform a remote control via terminals. Whether it's to perform a communication or remote control, the display card must be used to manipulate operative images and send the images back and forth among the server and the other computers or terminals. The image manipulation, which typically hinges on a transmission speed of the display card, is intimately connected to the production process. It means that the graphical speed of the images mostly depends on a bus specification of the display card.
Traditionally, several display cards have to be in compliance with the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) interface specification. However, with an increase of image transmission volumes, the transmission speed in PCI specification is not fast enough to meet the present requirements. Therefore, a new, faster interface standard for image signal transfer is needed, and AGP is more used to be a needed display interface standard. Please refer to FIG. 1, which is a basic architectural diagram of a traditional computer backplane with an AGP.
Although the traditional computer backplane 100 utilizes an AGP expansion slot 102 to perform image transfer, the AGP slot 102 is soldered directly onto a CPU interface card 104. An AGP display card 108 is inserted into the AGP slot 102, and an AGP flat cable (not shown) is connected to a monitor. The CPU interface card 104 is directly inserted into an expansion slot 106 mounted on the backplane 100. However, the AGP display card 108 is horizontally inserted into the AGP slot 102 but oriented vertical to, and away from, the CPU interface card 104. Such an insertion may easily occupy a space required for other neighboring expansion slots, resulting in reduction of the number of other usable interface cards.
Although the AGP display card 108 can be traditionally designed as an on-board display interface of the CPU card 104, this may cause the display interface irreplaceable. When the user must selectively use different types display interfaces for different applications, the on-bonid AGP is rendered useless and a waste. In other words, the user must pay the cost of the on-board AGP card 108, and loses the ease of replacement to use other display cards.
Thus improving allocation of the AGP card and raising ease of replacement of the AGP card is an important issue for designers.